


Who So Will Come After Me

by slamjam



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Ep. 159 fic, M/M, Now kiss, mention of sexual content but its so small
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2021-01-05 18:29:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21213131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slamjam/pseuds/slamjam
Summary: He’d only seen him in bits and spurts in the last half year, and even then he tried not to look at him straight on. Like the sun, "He might blind you."





	Who So Will Come After Me

The Lonely reminded Martin a little bit of being younger. When it was just him in the office he felt like he could be in 10th form again, stuck between a house that didn’t feel like home and a school full of people who could care less whether he lived or died. He did a lot of work at the shitty public library then, and he could close his eyes and pretend he was there. Get a small slice of the past to settle himself in, pretend he was anywhere else where there were no monsters or ridiculous boat captains who demanded you do spreadsheets for nine hours in a dark room. 

This place was different, a pebbly beach somewhere from Peter’s memory. The vegetation on the mainland felt like it was miles away but Martin could still see that it was rotting, putrefaction seeping from the weeping stems of low thorn bushes and climbing up the leaves. It felt like home in the worst way. Because when the lonely had you, it wasn’t just about isolation, or depression or self-deprecation like Peter had liked to pretend it was to the Archives crew. The worst of it was the way the mind moves in the absence of stimulation. The hallucinations that humans create to stay sane that it twists, false smells, memories that were once sweet being thrown out of context, out of sync with life. It takes the story of you and brought it to you in shards, disorienting you until the only lucid thread left is that of submission, and you have no choice but to follow it or fall apart. There was only so much you might want to resist, when you reached that part. And Peter was so terribly strong, a chosen Avatar of his entity. He didn’t even have to touch Martin to subdue him, sink him into that quiet place and make him feel his brain ripping itself apart. All in all, it was pretty much exactly how he’d expected to go.

He wasn’t so deep that he couldn’t see Jon when he first entered, ripping apart the white wall of fog like an amniotic sack, dimensional gore spilling out before he pulled the fog back together with what looked like sheer willpower and started power-walking up the beach towards him.It was simply that he didn’t understand why. 

Why would Jon come for him after he’d already sacrificed himself to save his life once (the hospital bed, Jon’s clammy skin, sluggish pulse, antiseptic smell). Why did he want him in the first place, (“martin is useless”, Jon’s hawkish stare, his pointed dismissal in that clipped posh accent, the guilt of coming with Jon’s name on his lips, the guilt, the shame, the way it burned). He felt his mouth move, responding to Jon when he asked him to come along with him and it was just like last time but… easier. He was less him, more Lonely, fractaled. His mother, the sensation of water under his fingers, a knife, Tim, a snatch of a latin song from his A levels “Esuriéntes implévit bonis: et dívites dimísit”[1]. He is more mist than man. 

He hears Peter’s confession, sees the blood spatter and he doesn’t move. Just lets his toes sink further into the rocks, feels the cold water seep through his socks (when did he take off his shoes? The memory of Velcro, pulling shoes off to run in soft grasses comes to him and he takes a few faltering steps before stopping again, the water lapping around his ankles. And Jon is there again. 

“Hello Jon” He hears him say something about safety with doubt in his voice, and for a moment he knows that if he pushes he could take Jon with him into this place of emptiness. But just as he opens his mouth to pull Jon says “We need you. I need you.” Like he’s praying and Martin feels himself flutter without quite knowing why, his concentration gone. 

“No you don’t,” he says, petulant “Not really.” 

“Martin, Martin look at me. Look at me and tell me what you see.”

“I see,” a flicker of light, the delusion-edged shape of an Eye, and Martin felt himself cringe back into the space of the Lonely, but there was a familiar pressure. Like a hand on the back of his neck, the little shuffle of being half asleep seeking warmth in the night, he curled around the feeling and let it lift him up, up. And though his eyes were open, he felt them open again, and Saw. 

“I see you Jon.”

The film over his eyes, whatever it was, sloughed away and there was Jon, but not like how he’d left him. He’d only seen him in bits and spurts in the last half year, and even then he tried not to look at him straight on. Like the sun “He might blind you”, Peter had said months ago with that little self-satisfied laugh that meant he knew more than he was letting on. He’d thought it a cruel joke at the time but looking at him now hurt on a physical level. He was haggard, Martin had expected that, covered in fresh blood and looking about half the weight he’d left him at in the hospital but God, he was radiant with power. His body was shining with Compulsion, Eyes shivering and blinking in their nauseating semicorporiality, but his face was the same. Set with a determination to bring Martin back at any damn cost that burned the pieces of the Lonely left in him, but he wouldn’t look away. Not if this was the last time he could see the stubborn set of Jon’s jaw, his miserably human eyes a bloodshot dark brown and feel his hand where it was fisted in Martin’s raggedy jumper. He’d heard Jon through the fog but seeing him, seeing this (he didn’t want to call it love, not until he knew) Martin realized that he’d been crying.

“I see you.” He said, meaning “I love you”.

“Oh Martin” Jon breathed, and they fell into each other, stumbling backwards before catching themselves, both trying to get as close to the other as humanly possible. Martin tried to laugh but it came out as a sob, making him clutch at Jon tighter, nuzzling deeper into the sweet-spicy scent of him as he tried to collect himself enough to speak. 

“I on my own, I was all on my own.” He shuddered, and felt Jon’s arms wrap impossibly tighter around him. 

“Not anymore.” He said, the vibrations making Martin’s skin tingle. 

“Come on” He pulled his face out of Jon’s neck enough to look up at him skeptically, and felt a shock run through him when Jon brushed his lips against his own. It could have been an accident, some sort of aborted forehead touch or something, but Jon didn’t seem startled or upset and he asked- he said “let’s go home” husky and kind of shy. And Martin was terrified; of the future, that this was some sort of horrific prank, the last dregs of the lonely in a dying victim showing them exactly what they wanted before eating them whole but he didn’t care. He cupped Jon’s cheek, tacky with blood and asked “How?” 

And Jon smiled for him, small but full of so much joy as he bent down to meet him.

“Don’t worry” he said against his lips, “I know the way.”

**Author's Note:**

> 1 This comes from [Carmina Amoris III, Planctus](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Mn2ZRDPeoE).  [ [return to text](%E2%80%9C#return1%E2%80%9D) ] Probably not something that he would actually sing in a modern A level choir because it's rather obscure but I spent 30 minutes listening to latin chants on a friday night so i'm putting it in here.  

> 
> Elias: fixing his dead corpse in the little panopticon chair.
> 
> Jon coming thru the lonely portal with Martin in tow: Hey bitch I killed your ex-husband 
> 
> The title is from the Oxford English Dictionary definition of the verb forsake. "to deny (oneself)" and the Scala Perfeccionis by Walter Hydon " Who soo wyll come after me, forsake hymself." I'm a crazy ass bitch who lives for Latin even though I can't read it lmaoooooo


End file.
